


A Winter's Tale

by Svirdilu



Series: What-if Wednesday [1]
Category: Roleplay - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Suicidal Thoughts, This is both a crossover and an AU I'm not sure it even counts as fandom anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 03:42:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13895490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Svirdilu/pseuds/Svirdilu
Summary: This is your fault, you fucker, you know who you are





	A Winter's Tale

**Author's Note:**

> This is your fault, you fucker, you know who you are

Stocke's still not entirely sure why he's here. There's a bite mark at the back of his throat that's healing slower than the far-worse stab wound to his chest, and a creature hovering in and out, stoking the fire, making sure he stays... whatever it made sure to return him to. (Stocke's not sure he can say "alive.") It doesn't bar him from leaving, but that's meaningless, when it's only ice and snow and nameless forest into the distance.

There's the what.

The hut he's trapped in, in spirit if not letter, is homely enough. Smaller than most buildings he's lived in, far larger than the space he had to himself in the barracks. Something about it seems lonely, old, but lasting; a weathered stone still upright in the surf after years and years of tides. There's dust Stocke keeps finding in the corners, and the impression is of nothing less than a home abandoned decades before, but built sturdy enough to survive the many years without inhabitants. Sometimes the creature stumbles over some wear and tear - it's not like the place could survive entirely unscathed - and makes a displeased noise, a "tch." It's as though Greed dug it out from a hundred-years' memories and expected it to be near the same.

The creature watches him, all the time. Sometimes it's curious, but most of the time Stocke could swear it looks condescending - or, no. Amused is more fair a word. It acts like it knows him, but Stocke's more than a little bit certain he doesn't know it in return, and the attention would unnerve him if the whole situation wasn't already.

There's another what.

But why - that Stocke doesn't know.

"What do you want?" the creature asks him, grin wide to the ears, and Stocke doesn't have an answer. 

It's not what _he_ wants anyway, is it? It's what _Greed_ wants from him. Only Stocke can't figure out what that is.

\---

Some days he's tired, tired to the bone, and there's a marrow-deep chill below his skin. Like the night Greed found him in the snow, crimson stain leaking out and cold taking its place, emptying - becoming ice. He's not sure if he's ever fully warmed since, sit as he might in front of the fire in Greed's hut or in the sun outside in sparse hours of daylight, push himself as he might to gasping and sweating, near-dropping with his muscles aching from overexertion.

Maybe it's all in his head. Maybe the Sin's lying about not having changed him, though Stocke can't find any sign of it - then again, he's hardly an expert. Maybe it's just that that night took something from him, and however Greed brought him back from the brink, it can't be reclaimed.

(Some days, especially when he remembers the man's face, Stocke thinks: it'd have been easier to die. And that might be true. Some days he thinks: I should have died. That is, maybe, also true.)

But he hadn't wanted to die that night, that much Stocke knows. There's no question about the truth in it. In that half-twilight between the glint of fire off snow and the abyss, with the rhythmic chime of chains dragging closer and closer, he'd _wanted_... something. Something that'd slipped out of his grasp just as fast as it came to thought. Prophet's blessing, he'll find it again.

So he bides his time, recovering. Doing his part to keep up Greed's hut, searching for fuel and hunting and doing all the little tasks of life that are suddenly important when you're near alone, out in the winter in the middle of nowhere, even as he suspects the Sin doesn't need the half of them. Maintaining his own skills when the Sin vanishes every once in a while - where does he _go_? There's nothing for leagues and leagues around, and it's hard enough to sustain the two of them in shelter. If Stocke'd been able to travel further he'd be gone by now, and he's sure the Sin planned it that way - 

And he waits.

He'll find it again. If nothing else, spring will come.

\---

"Pierre, that right?" Greed asks out of nowhere one night, and Stocke stiffens.

The name's familiar enough - the man who sunk a knife between his ribs, the man who called him dog and traitor and executioner. The man who died bleeding out on the snow just as Stocke nearly did, without some creature from the frozen depths to revive him.

But also the boy who'd played with him over the roots of a giant tree's trunk, who'd roped him into spending days looking for missing cats or hidden things or adventures. Who'd let Stocke sob silently on his shoulder the night he'd found out what happened to his father, little as Stocke's fond of that memory in the end. Who'd had a sister named Claire, who he'd cared for very much, and... and Stocke doesn't know what happened to her, after he left to follow Rosch. He doesn't know what happened to Will, or Otto, or Marie - there's whole lives he missed when he ran off, only to meet some of them again only in fire or rebellion.

"How do you know that name?" he asks, and his tone is sharp, though his expression is neutral as ever. There weren't any names called in the fire of that night, not by the time it drew to a close.

Greed's smiling as usual, shark-toothed and awful as the creature he is. It'd raise Stocke's hackles if it didn't look different from the grins he's gotten used to. Reminiscing, heavy. Old, perhaps - as old as the Sin really is, though sometimes now Stocke forgets.

"Don't worry about it," is all Greed gives him, with a wave of his hand - pitch black claws played in patterns of gold from the fire.

When Stocke's eyes don't leave him, the Sin's grin widens. It's a little bit more like his usual, but Stocke's suddenly not sure which one's real. "Still don't remember, eh?"

Stocke doesn't. 

But he's beginning to believe.

\---

Greed's gone for two nights after, and even as Stocke runs through the usual routine during the days, breath puffing white clouds whenever he steps outside, he can feel himself doing something very like pacing inside his head. If it weren't so busy til nightfall, he'd be pacing in truth as well - and as soon as it _is_ dark, and he's sitting by firelight, he's fidgeting. He checks over his sword again (like he doesn't do it every day), makes sure all the cracks that let in cold wind are sealed (they still are), and eventually settles to whittling with scraps meant for the flames, mindless.

He's not good at it by any means - he's never practiced. The first shapes that spring up under his fingers are unintelligible, jagged and meaningless, and he's not sure what he's going for anyway. But eventually there's something taking form, clumsy as it is - a tree, spiraling branches and roots and scarred trunk, old and proud. Leafless, like winter, but though it's made of dead wood it doesn't _look_ dead.

Stocke stares at it a while, then throws it into the fire.

Greed shows up again just as dusk is setting the next day, and Stocke sets his teeth and drags the Sin to just in front of the fire. "Stay still," he commands, over the Sin's, "Oi, oi -" and pulls free the lockpicks he's always hidden in his boot.

The steel collar around Greed's throat is welded shut, and Stocke's not got the tools or knowledge to remove it, especially not safe. But the bindings that dangle around his wrists, his ankles - those are just locks, and old ones at that. They'll be nowhere near as hard to pick as ones from the current day - at worst, there might be rust that'll get in the way. (Stocke doesn't think there will be - none of the Sin's chains have shown any sign of it, somehow.)

Stocke pays no attention to the Sin's expression, eyes focused only on his picks. He doesn't look even when the last shackle drops free, scooping picks back up and stepping away, but he does remember this: Greed is uncharacteristically silent.

Stocke doesn't try to figure out whether it's because he's pleased, because he's angry, because of something else entire. He leaves Greed to work out what to do with his former chains and steps out into the cold.

The moon is bright and full, a crisp-clear sight he hasn't payed attention to for what feels like years. Stocke stays outside until he starts to shiver, then turns back to the hut's door.

\---

"What do you want?" Greed asks him again, as the chill edges into spring, and this time Stocke knows. He has his reasons for taking the spot he did under Heiss, but he knows nothing of the rebellion's - nothing of what Pierre died for, of what near everyone he knew vanished into to hit and run and burn. He still has no idea where Rosch went, or why Heiss is so close-mouthed about it. He doesn't know why the fight's stretched long as it has, with the castle's news always speaking of new victories, few defeats.

It might not be the reason he reached for his sword that night, so desperate to stay alive - or maybe it was. Stocke's not sure, and he doesn't think he'll ever truly know. That moment passed and was gone.

But:

"I want answers."

There's a flicker of response in the Sin's eyes, something partway between demonic, fire-like, and the ice-chill cold he's made of. He leers. 

"There's a start," he responds, like it's something they're going to work on.


End file.
